Darkwater (28 page)

‘What bird?’ Fanny demanded.

Marcus pointed towards the empty birdcage. ‘In there.’

Lady Arabella shuffled forward. ‘There’s no bird in there. The cage has been empty for months. Didn’t I tell you about my parrot. He died—but my goodness, Fanny! Look! There is a bird.’

The white shape, wings outspread, was clearly visible. It was hanging motionless against the bars of the cage. All unawares, Nolly must have brushed against it and it had pecked at her.

Marcus had caught Nolly’s fear, and now, in an unreasoning overwhelming wave it swept over Fanny.

There was only a not very large white bird hanging motionless in a cage in a gloomy room yet the atmosphere was heavy with dread.

‘Where are those lazy servants?’ cried Lady Arabella. ‘Why aren’t the lamps lit?’ She fumbled for the bell rope, and suddenly, from the deep chair in the corner, George began to laugh.

‘Ho, ho, ho! You’ve all been nicely taken in. It’s only a dead bird.’

Fanny spun round on him.

‘George! Why are you hiding there? Is this a horrible joke you’ve played?’

‘I didn’t play the joke. I didn’t put the bird there. But it was funny to see Nolly jump. You’d really think it had bitten her.’

Lizzie had come hurrying to answer the bell. Lady Arabella turned on her angrily.

‘Why haven’t you lit the lamps half an hour ago? You know Miss Olivia comes here to sew. Do you expect her to do it in the dark?’

‘But I did light them, ma’am!’ Lizzie protested. ‘Really I did. They must have gone out. Look, this one’s still warm.’

Nolly’s face was buried hard against Fanny’s breast. Fanny only hoped her own rapidly beating heart was not further upsetting the child. But she couldn’t help her feeling of unexplained dread. Someone had played a horrible trick on the children, put a dead bird in the birdcage, blown out the lamps…Why?

‘Then didn’t you fill them?’ Lady Arabella snapped. ‘Can’t you be a little more thorough in your work? Here I fall asleep on my bed, and am woken by banshee shrieks all because you’ve been too lazy to see that the lamps were burning properly. The child wouldn’t have got a fright if she could have seen this bird properly. Let’s have a look at it.’

Lizzie, muttering something under her breath about the lamps being properly attended to, re-lit them, and in the soft glow the poor mute motionless creature was clearly visible. It wasn’t even a real bird, but just a realistic concoction of feathers, with a small sharp beak. Fanny remembered seeing it somewhere before, and suddenly recognised it as belonging to one of Aunt Louisa’s bonnets. She had used to wear it to church last winter, nestling among veiling and ribbons.

It was only someone who knew Nolly’s phobia about birds who realised how much of a fright this would have given her. But who, apart from George with his retarded sense of humour, would have wanted to frighten a child?

The disturbance had brought Aunt Louisa and Amelia hurrying upstairs.

Aunt Louisa was furious.

‘Who has been destroying my bonnets? Mamma, surely—’

Lady Arabella’s eyes went completely cold.

‘I’m not senile yet, Louisa, much as you might like to think I am. No, I don’t go about blowing out lamps and frightening children.’

But she had always enjoyed frightening them with her stories, Fanny remembered, and then comforting them with sugar plums. She had enjoyed her power over them.

‘George! Amelia—’

‘Mamma, don’t be idiotic,’ said Amelia. ‘A silly old artificial bird. I wouldn’t even think of such a thing.’

George was laughing again, the snigger of a schoolboy who has enjoyed a practical joke.

‘I don’t know who did it, but it was deuced funny. I say, make the child get over it, Fanny. She can’t have been that scared.’

But Nolly, Fanny realised, was not going to get over this last shock. Too many shocks had been accumulating inside her. She had gone suddenly limp in Fanny’s arms, and seemed as if she were really ill.

‘I’m taking her to bed,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, Aunt Louisa, but I think this time the doctor ought to be sent for.’

There was a great fuss about that. Aunt Louisa pooh-poohing pandering to what were probably only tantrums, but at that moment Uncle Edgar came upstairs to see what was going on and was instantly alarmed.

‘The child’s sickening for something. By all means, the doctor must come. I’ll have him sent for immediately.’

‘She isn’t sickening for something, Uncle Edgar,’ said Fanny. ‘She’s merely had a very bad fright. But can we talk about that later?’

She was carrying Nolly’s limp, too light body back to the nursery, Marcus clinging to her skirts whimpering. She heard Uncle Edgar’s loud voice as she went, ‘God bless my soul, Mamma, what next! If you want a new parrot I’ll buy you one, but to play games with dead birds!’

‘If I play a game, Edgar,’ came Lady Arabella’s voice, slow, distinct, and far from senile, ‘it will be a much cleverer one than that. And one that I will win.’

By night-time Nolly had a high fever. The doctor had been, and given her a sedative which had sent her into a heavy sleep. He had heard the story of what had happened and said that contrary to sickening for some disease, the fright, to such a highly-strung child, might well bring on a brain fever. The utmost quiet and good nursing were essential. And there must be no more shocks. Her short life had held too many already.

Leaving Hannah (Dora was infected with the uneasiness in the house and jumped every time a door opened or a curtain billowed in a draught) beside the sleeping child, Fanny went downstairs. She didn’t want dinner, she was too distressed for that, but there were things that must be said. She had reached a conclusion in the last hour that made her more angry than afraid.

The meal was over, and the family was in the drawing room.

George sprang up eagerly at her entrance, and Amelia asked, ‘How is poor little Nolly?’

‘Sleeping,’ said Fanny briefly. ‘Uncle Edgar, I shall not, of course, be able to accompany you to London tomorrow.’

Uncle Edgar pushed aside his glass of port, and said in distress, ‘My dear child, is that sacrifice really necessary? You had set your heart on this expedition.’

‘Yes, Uncle, I had. But someone is equally determined that I shouldn’t go.’

Now she had everybody’s startled attention.

‘Whatever is this, Fanny?’ Aunt Louisa demanded. ‘I admit I never thought that extravagant journey to see an old man who has probably lost his memory was at all necessary. But this stupid childish joke with the bird in the cage was meant only to amuse the children, surely. It had nothing to do with you. I never heard anything so extraordinary.’

‘I think it had everything to do with me,’ Fanny said clearly. ‘Someone must have been jealous of my going, or perhaps had an even more serious reason for stopping me. Anyway, you all knew Nolly’s fear of birds. Whoever put the bird in Great-aunt Arabella’s room was quite aware that the child would be scared out of her wits, and probably ill. And that consequently I wouldn’t leave her. It’s really very simple indeed.’

As they all stared, she added, ‘If it was only meant to frighten the children, then that’s even worse. I think whoever would do that is a devil.’

She rubbed her hand across her forehead, wearily, and heard Aunt Louisa saying in a put-out voice, ‘Edgar, surely it isn’t necessary to question the servants. Fanny is making a mountain out of this silly business. After all, I should be the one who is upset. It was my bonnet that was ruined.’

‘It isn’t a trifling business, Aunt Louisa,’ said Fanny. ‘Nolly is seriously ill.’

Uncle Edgar was on his feet, looking as perturbed as his comfortable after-dinner flush would allow.

‘Now come, Fanny, if you’re finding hidden meanings in a prank, I can surely find one in your implication that neither your aunt nor Amelia nor any of the servants, even Hannah who has seen you all through enough illness, is capable of looking after that extremely spoilt little girl. Stop talking nonsense, and prepare to leave for London in the morning, as we arranged.’

‘You know I can’t. You know I won’t. You must have heard the doctor say Nolly could develop brain fever. She has already been crying for Ching Mei. She hasn’t mentioned her amah’s name for weeks. Next she will cry for her mother. And if I disappear, too, then what do you imagine the consequences will be? No’—her eyes went round the room—‘if someone played this horrible trick to keep me here they have succeeded very well. I will write to Mr Craike explaining the position.’

Nobody had wanted her to go to London, she knew that. They had all had their separate reasons. Even Uncle Edgar hadn’t wanted to miss the hunt. But now, because she had made the accusation, they all had smooth astonished faces, as if incredulous that she could think herself so important.

The fact that no one could deny was that the bird had been put in the birdcage, and had succeeded far too well in providing the necessary upset.

George was the most likely culprit, and yet it seemed at once too clever and too simple a plot for him. Perhaps he had had his grandmother whisper in his ear. Aunt Louisa had grudged the money spent on Fanny, and Amelia the attention. Uncle Edgar’s seeming acts of generosity were not usually such unselfish ones…

‘Oh, poor Fanny!’ Amelia cried, suddenly springing up and throwing her arms round Fanny. ‘It is true, she gets all the worry. Let’s make up to her for her disappointment, and give her a really wonderful birthday next week.’

‘A splendid idea,’ said Uncle Edgar in a relieved voice. ‘And you write a letter to Craike, Fanny. Ask him all the things you want to know. He’ll answer them as well in writing, as in an interview. Get it done tonight, and give it to me. I’ll see it gets away by the post in the morning.’

‘And Fanny, don’t sit up with that child all night,’ Aunt Louisa ordered. ‘I’ll look in before I go to bed, and the servants will take turns. You’ve really brought this indispensability on yourself, by your own behaviour.’

‘If Ching Mei hadn’t died, it wouldn’t have happened,’ said Fanny, and again the blank faces looked at her.

‘Well, you’d better have that out with Sir Giles Mowatt,’ said Uncle Edgar. ‘He let the prisoner escape. He’s tightened up regulations now, he tells me. Vows there’ll be no more escapes. Fellow’s away to Australia by now, I believe.’

‘Aus-Australia!’ echoed Amelia unbelievingly.

‘That’s what they think. A ship bound for the Antipodes sailed from Plymouth a day or so later. And there goes a murderer scot-free. He’ll probably make his fortune in the goldfields. Ah well, life’s a funny thing. Most unfair at times. Most unfair.’

Amelia made a movement as if to say something, men stopped. Her face was white, her eyes darkened.

‘Papa—’

Her father waited indulgently for her comment. When none came, he said, ‘What is it, my dear?’

‘Are you all right, Amelia? You look pale.’

‘I’m quite all right, Mamma. It’s just that talk of escaped prisoners makes me nervous. Sometimes at night—the ivy taps on my window—and I almost scream.’

‘My poor darling, you mustn’t be nervous. I tell you, Sir Giles declares not even a weasel could slip out of that jail now.’

Amelia looked at her father with her dilated eyes. Then Lady Arabella, who had been dozing the entire time, woke with a great start, and murmured in her hoarse voice, ‘Fanny is a good girl. She deserves more than a party.’

And it seemed as if after all she might have been listening all the time.

S
HE WAS CAUGHT—SHE
was the bird struggling and suffocating in the chimney. The bird had died…

Fanny, dozing in her chair at Nolly’s bedside, started up, wide awake again, the questions without answers going round and round remorselessly in her brain.

The fire was dying, and the room almost dark. She got up to carefully shovel on more coal. In spite of her care, Nolly stirred, and muttered, as she had several times in her half-delirium, ‘Cousin Fanny! When will Ching Mei come back for her shoes?’

Soon the coal caught alight, and the room grew more cheerful. Nolly slept again. The Chinese doll that lately she had wanted much less was tucked in beside her. It had seemed to comfort her. That it had been the innocent cause of Ching Mei’s death, fortunately the child didn’t know. And, just as it was likely she would never discover who had put the bird in the birdcage, Fanny had never known who had tossed the doll on her bed that night.

But none of the queer episodes, not even Nolly’s fright in the copse, had seemed quite as sinister as the imitation bird tonight.

Or perhaps Fanny felt that simply because she was so tired and overwrought and disappointed about her cancelled journey to London. So alone…

She had no one to whom to turn except Adam Marsh. Should she turn to him? Could she trust him? She kept remembering his injunction in his letter to her,
‘if ever you have any doubts…’

Now she had too many doubts. Whether they were the kind to which he referred, she didn’t know, but on an overwhelming impulse she tiptoed to her room and got writing paper from her bureau.

‘…
It isn’t for myself, but for the children that I am worried. Someone is deliberately trying to frighten them. Nolly is ill tonight. I can’t leave her to go to London. I am
w
ondering if that pleases our tormentor, if it is what was intended. I confess now that I have never been entirely convinced that Ching Mei’s death was due to the accident of her encountering the escaped prisoner. I think someone outside the family should know that my cousin George is more seriously ill than it was at first thought. Families can be too loyal…’

Putting her anxieties on paper gave her intense relief. She finished the letter, melted wax over the candle flame to seal the envelope, then slipped it into her pocket to ponder later how she would see that it reached Adam. She couldn’t leave it in the hall to be taken with the rest of the post. Everyone would want to know why she was writing to Adam Marsh.

That letter finished, she began the one of apology to Mr Craike. She begged him to write to her telling her all he could of her parents. Perhaps at a later date she would be able to visit him.